Republican and Conservative political analysis and commentary

Here's an excellent story about the early dash for cash by candidates hoping to win the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, and how at George W. Bush's 2000 campaign fundraising strategy in which dozens of wealthy donors were designated as fundraising "Rangers" and "Pioneers" if they raised large sums for the campaign, is being emulated by the candidates for 2008.

Ed Rogers, a Republican lobbyist not affiliated with a potential presidential candidate, said that with just 14 months remaining before the first ballots are cast, any candidate not knee-deep in conversations with Rangers and Pioneers is falling behind. "We are going to have a nominee by Feb. 6," 2008, Rogers said. "You have to have all of your money at the opening gun."

The Post writers Chris Cillizza and Michael Fletcher say Bush's 2000 campaign "forever changed the fund-raising dynamic for presidential races, showing that an enormous early financial advantage was the same as winning an invisible primary."

In that race there are no voters, elections or overt campaigning, just the wooing of fabulously rich people with the rewards of insider status, complete with fancy titles. So far, Romney and Arizona Sen. John McCain are well ahead among the Republican contenders, though neither has yet to come up with monikers like Pioneer or Ranger to flatter their biggest donors. ... In this new world of presidential fund-raising, finding a single wealthy person and convincing him or her to write a check is not the gold standard. Instead, the goal is to identify individuals who not only can contribute the federal limit of $2,000 but also can convince 100 or so of their friends and business associates to do the same.

"It's important because in the invisible primary phase, elected officials who have their own organizations and their own power to endorse pay attention to who the big fund-raisers are coalescing around," said Wayne Berman, a Bush Ranger in 2004 and a backer of McCain in the 2008 race.

2008 seems a long way off - after all, we just had an election, right? But the first votes will be cast in the 2008 GOP presidential primaries in just 14 months. And the winner of the money game may well already be known by then.